Saturday, January 5 had finally arrived – the day we had
been anticipating since May 2011 when we first saw the itinerary for this
cruise, even before our 2012 cruise. It
complemented so perfectly the 2012 cruise since it went through the Panama
Canal which we had never experienced, spent time in Moorea, Bora Bora, New
Zealand, and Sydney, all of which we had enjoyed so much during our 2009
Pacific cruise, and visited new ports in southern and western Australia,
Indonesia, the Philippines, and countries in southern Africa including
Madagascar, Mozambique, South Africa, and Namibia.
That morning in the hotel we decided to skip the $18 breakfast
or the $5 orange juice and preferred to wait for the 10:30 brunch hosted by
AAA, through which we had booked our cruise.
As last year, we were greeted warmly by Jack and Gloria Meerman, AAA
hosts for the cruise before sitting down to delicious brunch at the hotel. We were seated with several new acquaintances
along with a few people we had met last year or on the 2009 South Pacific
voyage. People at home find it hard to
comprehend doing one long cruise but there are so many people that do them
constantly, that we would still be considered rookies by their standards. I sat next to a lady that I had shared one of
the best shore excursions I have ever done, a tour on the island of Vanuatu in
the South Pacific in 2009.
After the brunch we gathered our most valuable items to
board the bus to the ship. The rest of
the luggage we had brought on the plane to Florida was loaded on the bus. We were told we would be leaving for the ship
at noon and all but two people on the two buses were on at the appointed time,
ready to go. But of course one couple
hadn’t heard the revised time and they were going by a printed letter that said
we would depart at 12:30. Naturally they
chose to come to the bus about 12:25 and finally we were on our way. When we got into the port terminal to get in
line for security, we noticed the line was unusually long and the lines for
check in were even longer. A few minutes
later, we saw that none of the lines were moving. A man in an orange shirt was standing,
waiting to go through the security check an no one was bothering to process
him. And then we noticed that the long
snaking lines for cruise check in were not moving either. A few moments later, emergency crews were rushing in with equipment
and a stretcher to take someone away.
Our thought was – all that planning and all that anticipation, and
coming within a few minutes of boarding the ship, and she was being taken off
to the hospital!
Once she had left the building, security checks
resumed. After moving through security without
incident, we proceeded to the line for 4 Star Mariners and guests on the
Navigation Deck. That line is supposed
to expedite the check in process, but the problem was that on this voyage,
probably over half of the cruisers are 4 Star Mariners so that line took over
an hour!
Finally on board, we went up to our stateroom and found two
of our pieces of luggage had been delivered.
Gradually through the afternoon, more luggage came and when we returned
after dinner it was all in the room ready to be unpacked! However, I was unhappy to notice that a
suitcase wheel on a large two year old suitcase had come completely off so now
it was unable to stand on the three wheels!
On top of that, another suitcase had a partially detached buckle as well
as two large rips which opened right into the suitcase itself. Inside the suitcase a hard plastic box was
broken. We attributed this to careless
treatment by either Fed Ex and/or Holland America handlers!
Just before the mandatory lifeboat drill, Barb realized that
her jewelry case was missing. Frantically she ripped everything apart from our
messy room full of unpacked luggage and it wasn’t there. She had had it in the morning in the
hotel! We had to go down to the deck for
the lifeboat drill and for the lesson on how to put on a life jacket instead of
continuing her search. Back in the room,
after a few more minutes of searching, she solicited the help of the concierge
to check the phone number of the hotel where we had stayed before we sailed off
around the world. He dropped everything
to help but when she returned to the room and continued the frantic search, she
found the lost item behind a bunch of the fuffee and unnecessary pillows on the sofa. What a relief to have that crisis averted.
We were pleased to see some familiar faces again but
disappointed not to see others.
Concierge, Hanz, was back and so were favorites like Tina and Sari in
the Pinnacle, but our wonderful dining steward from 2009, Herfan, who had been
moved up to Pinnacle staff was not. And
neither was his 2009 partner and our 2012 dining steward, Yohat! We had requested Yohat again but a family
emergency had precluded his joining the ship in early December when he had been
scheduled to return. We made a request that Yohat be brought on to the ship for
the World Cruise, but the position had been filled by someone else in early
December. It was a huge disappointment
for us not to see Yohat’s friendly face and his infectious laugh when we went
to dinner the first night.
Other familiar faces we were pleased to see were Cruise
Director, Bruce Scudder, and Travel Guide, Barbara Haenni. Likewise we were delighted that Piano Bar
pianist, Debby Bacon, whom we had just begun to get to know at the end of the
last cruise was back. Her warm, friendly personality was a big hit and she made
a genuine effort to get to know as many guests by name as possible. We took the opportunity to listen to her play
the first night on board and know we will do so much more frequently this year.
We also connected with friends Nancy and Bob from West
Virginia and North Carolina as well as Sally and Ange from Florida. We had stayed with Sally and Ange near West
Palm Beach last year just before our cruise. We were also pleasantly surprised
to find Brenda and Bob who we had met last year were our next door neighbors
this year! However we really missed Al,
our travel partner for the whole cruise last year from near Phoenix and Pam,
our good friend from New Lenox who traveled with us as far as Sydney.
On Sunday, we decided to attend the Protestant
interdenominational service and found a new chaplain who seemed to be able to
take advantage of connecting our wonderful voyage with an inspirational message
for those who attended. We then settled into the routine of sea day lectures (a
speaker on the history of the Panama Canal as well as one on Broadway
musicals). We were going to try the
popular shipboard trivia that we had enjoyed with Australian friends Ros and
Gary last year but quickly found that the “serious” trivia players had their
teams set and no one seemed to have room for two of us on their teams, so we
just walked away. We had anticipated
just joining with others that, like us, had just come in for some fun and to
see who needed partners and no one did.
It seemed pretty closed as far as we were concerned – kind of a surprise
to us. Maybe someone will need partners as the cruise continues, but if not, no
big deal.
When we got up on Monday, our second full day at sea, the ship
was rocking and pitching. On sea days I
usually take an early morning walk, and today was no exception. However it was not a pleasant walk with
seemingly one step forward, a couple of unplanned quick steps to the side, then another step ahead for 11 laps. Not fun.
In fact I was more seasick than I remember at all last year, including
as we sailed the supposedly roughest waters of the oceans between South America
and Antarctica. Many people were
reporting the same feeling and walking was difficult. In fact, our friend Nancy was walking out of
the balcony of the Queen’s Lounge after the morning speaker and one of the
heavy doors at the exit swung shut and nearly hit her in the face and did bang
her arm and chest, knocking her down.
Barb was near her and while trying to break Nancy’s fall, she almost
fell on Nancy. Fortunately Barb avoided
the fall but Nancy filed an incident report and that side of the door was
locked until the seas calmed. Barb
commented that this was the second fall she broke for someone at the same door.
The captain reported that the winds were blowing at about 30 mph (non-nautical
terminology) and could get up to about 33 mph before subsiding.
The good news was that the winds were to be calm by the time
we reach Cartagena, Colombia tomorrow; the bad news was that the temp may hit
about 91 with approximately 100 heat index when we arrive. Quite a contrast to what we are accustomed to
in Chicago and Buffalo in early January!
CT
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